This image expresses an enigmatic idea, rich in mystery and somber in mood. I render it in black and white, removing the colors to better serve the story. The image is also a study in textures, which bracket the stone monuments between rough grass and heavy foliage. More than half this image is earth, the final resting place of those lie beneath these grave markers.

The light softly brushes the face of these markers, and adds dimensionality to the figure of a child within the one at left. The child cast in stone, with its arms crossed upon its chest, becomes the subject of this story. We leave it to the viewer's imagination to ponder the elusive, tragic nature of a life cut short. Who was he? How did he die? We may never know but we will perhaps remember this image long after it has gone from our sight.

The image also benefits from the famous nature of its setting -- this name of the cemetery itself sets the mind spinning. It was here where the author Washington Irving is buried -- his gothic story, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," published in 1820, features a chilling character known as The Headless Horseman, believed to be a Hessian soldier who was decapitated by a cannonball in battle.

A sentence from Irving's story echoes the mood of my image, as well. "A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere." The cemetery is also known as The Old Dutch Burying Ground. It provides the setting for several scenes in Irving's story. During the American Revolution, the headless corpse of a Hessian soldier was actually found here, and buried in an unmarked grave, providing Irving with a fact upon which to build his legendary fictional tale.